


Committed

by LadyStrangeandUnusual (Dream_Wreaver)



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mental Instability, Mental Institution, Villain Saves the Damsel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23081155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream_Wreaver/pseuds/LadyStrangeandUnusual
Summary: Betelgeuse gets what he wants and is released from the jurisdiction of the Afterlife. Only problem is that when he returns to Winter River, his wife's not where she's supposed to be. And where he finds her isn't gonna look too pretty once he's done with it.
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 33
Kudos: 158





	1. Conjugal Visit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheArtOfSuicide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtOfSuicide/gifts).



> A day late but I tried. Happy Birthday to the Queen Rat! Hope you like it!

Waiting was a game that Betelgeuse was good at. As much as he didn’t like to do it, he could if was necessary. After dealing with the Shaman’s little shrunken head curse -a somewhat amusing challenge- he’d had to wait until his number had been called and flirting with some of the new arrivals could only prove so entertaining. Not when he had her. Lydia, Lydia, Lydia. The marriage ceremony was as good as had been completed. He’d gotten the ring on her finger, and the minister had pronounced them man and wife. He should have been freed. But then Babs had come in on that damn sandworm and so here he was. But he knew that the number they’d given him had been long on purpose. A chance to stall, to look for a loophole of some kind, bureaucratic red tape with which to bind him. He knew the drill, it was how he’d gotten so good at cutting through it in the first place. It didn’t matter, they wouldn’t find any. He’d read that damn handbook cover to cover at least three hundred times, always looking for a way out of whatever predicament they tried to trap him in. Sometimes, it had almost worked. But most times, all it did was reaffirm his determination to get the hell out.

Naturally, when his number was called and his salacious remark to the former beauty queen Miss Argentina was met with nothing more than an eye roll and a feminine huff, he was brought to the one person who could tolerate him the longest. His former boss, Juno. The woman was old as dirt, though she looked a helluva lot better preserved than he did. He assumed that was because there was some attempt at personal upkeep on her part. But he neither knew for sure nor cared enough to find out. What he did care about was getting his releasement forms so he could reunite with his cursed bride and finally get to the fun part of marriage. It had most likely been at least a year or two topside, enough time for that budding rack she had hiding under those death shrouds she liked to wear to finally blossom. But Juno was speaking, and he should probably be paying attention. Even if it was hard to do with freedom so close he could taste it causing him to fidget just a little. There was also the lingering feelings of anxiousness Lydia’s little wedding getup had stirred in him, a vision that haunted him almost every time he closed his eyes.

“Betelgeuse will ya pay attention please!” Juno snapped at him, ashing out her spent cigarette and immediately lighting up another one. God he loved annoying the shit out of her, the only way it would have been better was if he could annoy her to death.

“Right, right, I’m listening,” Betelgeuse waved her off, “But we all know you’re wasting breath ya don’t even need Junebug, just hand me my release papers 'n I’ll be off ta reunite with m'missus.”

If she weren’t dead and already missing all the blood in her system, Betelgeuse might have said she paled at the mention of Lydia. But her normally stoic expression was more blank. As though on purpose. And there was genuine fear in her eyes. No surprise there, she’d seen first hand what he could do given half a reason. The only question was, what was the reason she thought she was likely to incite her wrath. Since mentioning Lydia it had to be something relating to his mortal bride. But what? She couldn’t be dead, that just didn’t work. Marriage bound them together, so long as he was still dead, she would still be alive. That was how it was laid out in the handbook after all. Something had happened, something had happened to Lydia and Junebug knew he would be pissed when he found out. Naturally, marriage meant that Lydia was _his_ , and nobody fucked with his property and got away with it.

Betelgeuse leaned forward, suddenly sober and serious, “Out with it Juney,” he snarled, “Somethin’s wrong, 'n yer gonna tell me what,”

Juno shook her head wordlessly, “I can’t tell you something I don’t know Betelgeuse. But what I do know is this; she isn’t at the Maitland house anymore.”

“And how, praytell, do you know that?”

“Because the Maitlands wasted a help voucher on it,” Juno shook her head, “Look, I get it. You’ve won, you got your freedom. I just hope you’re ready to see what it cost.”

“Cost?” he was about ready to yank her up over her desk by her pearls and stupid fluffy collar. As it was he was standing with his hands slammed into its top hard enough to leave marks, “Stop speaking in bullshit riddles 'n tell me what the fuck you’re talkin' 'bout.”

Again Juno shook her head, recoiling back a little. She busied herself with shuffling papers around so she didn’t have to face him directly. Her cigarette was sitting in its ash tray. When she spoke, she sounded almost like her usual self, but there was something off, like she knew what he was going to do when he found out whatever had happened to his bride, “I’ve arranged for immediate transportation to the Maitland house upon your release Betelgeuse,” she told him, setting a case file aside, “If they want to tell you, then they will. But just remember one thing,”

“What’s that?” he raised a skeptical brow as he slumped back into the chair with folded arms. There had never been a rule he hadn’t been able to break.

“We cannot interfere in the affairs of the living,” she said it like it was a death sentence, and in a flurry of papers, he was gone.

Gone from the Afterlife, gone from his chains. And back, back in that house in Winter River. The attic looked much the same, minus one overly large model he’d once made a temporary haunt out of. Probably’d gotten rid of it. Still, he wandered the attic, looking for the Maitlands far longer than he probably should have. He knew they weren’t here. For all he did know they were in the Afterlife for good and Juno just hadn’t told him. It would be just like her to send him back to an empty house. Betelgeuse lit up a cigarette and wandered downstairs. It certainly looked different from the last time he’d seen it. More quaint and country as opposed to the ugly as shit avantgarde decor that redheaded bitch and her little boy toy drug dealer were likely responsible for.

Oh wait, there was the model. But where the fuck were the Maitlands? He thought about calling for them, but where was the fun in that? So he stalked each room, finding them down below. Ah, there was where all the disgusting decor had gone. Down into the bowels of the house, where it quite frankly belonged if it absolutely had to stay. But they weren’t the same Maitlands he’d left behind. Sure, they looked the same, but so did every schmuck that ever died. But there was a melancholy countenance to them he’d only ever seen on Lydia, and she wore it a hell of a lot better than they did. Even so, he couldn’t resist a good care, even if it was a bit easy for his tastes. He snuck up behind them and in the gravelliest voice he could muster he whispered,

_“Boo,”_

They jumped. And when they turned to face him Babs had a hand over where her heart used to be as though she could still feel it racing. Death didn’t take the fear in god out of everyone it seemed. Then again, the Maitlands were still newlydeads in comparison to someone like him. Not enough time to beat all those annoying human tendencies out of them, not yet at least. 

“Evenin’ folks,” he greeted, taking a drag. Adam was the one to break out of his shock induced stupor first. He strode forward, grabbed Betel by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the nearest wall. The anger was adorable coming from a wimpy little shrimp like Adam Maitlands, which was the only reason Betelgeuse took it in stride as opposed to tearing off the offending arm immediately like he would have anyone else.

“You!” Adam hissed.

“Yeah, me,” Betelgeuse replied, like it should have been obvious. It wasn’t like he’d changed much in the last… however long it had been since the whole Winter River debacle went down, “Y’mind letting go now? You’re messin’ with the threads,”

“You should be double dead for everything you’ve done,” Adam was yelling and ranting, but Betelgeuse wasn’t exactly listening. He was here for one reason and one reason only, to find out what had happened to Lydia Deetz. And for some reason it was the fact that Adam continued to hold onto him like he was some misbehaving mongrel on a leash that was really starting to irritate him.

“Get yer fuckin’ hands offa me before ya lose ‘em, _permanently_ ,” Betelgeuse growled. When it only served to make Adam angrier and less able to read the damn room that was when Barbara stepped in.

“Adam let him go,” she interceded on the ghoul’s behalf. Not something he’d expected her to be doing considering she’d fed him to a damn sandworm with exactly zero remorse, “It’s not his fault he’s late.”

The fuck was she talking about? Oh, right, time had passed since he’d been in the waiting room. Time was a thing that concerned mortals. Oh well, he was dead, he had all the time in the world. Didn't matter if Lydia was a shriveled up old crone -not that she could be since the marriage had tied her lifeforce to his and thus granted her eternity in youth- he'd still raw her just for the sake of holding out on him anyways. But something about the way she'd said it. Not his fault he was late. There was a word missing in there. Or rather, a phrase constructed around it. Wait... not his fault he was late, not his fault he was _too_ late. Betelgeuse dusted off his grimy clothes -choosing to favor the old stripes for a laugh- and dropped his spent nicotine stick on their precious hardwood floors, ashing it out with a heavy grind of his boot.

“Now,” he cut in before the Maitlands could fuck back off to la-la land, “Someone wanna explain what the fuck is goin’ on here?”

“You mean you don’t already know?” they looked confused.

“Yeah, like they’d tell _me_ anything,” Betelgeuse snorted, “That's cute, real fuckin' adorable. They kept me in that fuckin’ waiting room forever 'n you think the minute they have no choice _but_ to deal with me they’re gonna spill their nonexistent guts? Fat fuckin’ chance. Now, not that I ain’t _thrilled_ to see you two deadbeats again, but I got more pressin’ matters, like findin’ my fuckin’ wife. So, if you two could be so kind as to tell me where the fuck she is, I’ll let you two get on with your sorry excuses for post-mortem existence.”

At the mention of Lydia’s name, Barbara began to burst into tears uncontrollably. And fuck if it didn’t almost make him feel bad. Crying women were the _worst_. But, she was Adam’s bitch, it was his job to make it stop, not Betel’s. Besides, he couldn’t be blamed for something he hadn’t known not to bring up right? But when it continued on far longer than he would have liked and Adam was doing nothing to help solve the problem Betelgeuse pulled out another old trick. With a thunk of metal covered Barbara’s mouth. The annoying noises weren’t quite so audible this way, and just like he’d hoped those noises were quickly morphing from sorrow to righteous indignation. And having lived through the heyday of pompous moralistic asshats, it was something he knew how to handle a lot better than a crying woman. And as an additional addendum, fuck those nuns from the local cloister, he really hoped the vikings had come back and pillaged and raped them.

“Was that really necessary?” Adam asked him, looking angry and flustered. Like man of the house, like her little plaid wearing bitch.

“No,” Betelgeuse admitted without any shame, “But," he added with a victorious smirk, “It got’cha ta stop cryin’ now din’t it?” he savored the feeling of Bab’s glare, but noticed she remained silent. Even though he was sure there was plenty she wanted to say. Juicing up another cigarette he took a drag and let out a long exhale of smoke, “Alright,” he began, “Here’s how this is gonna go. I’m gonna take off your bitch’s muzzle, an’ the two of ya are gonna calmly, _calmly_ explain what happened since ya sent me off to limbo n' where the hell my wife is now. Got it? An’ jus' ta be clear; the minute any _one_ o’ ya breaks into hysterics you’re _both_ gettin’ leashed. Capisce?”

When the Maitlands nodded mutely he sighed again, “Good, now,” another snap and Barbara could speak again, “What the fuck happened here?”

“It was…” Barbara’s voice immediately began to quaver and she took a moment to breathe and compose herself, “After the whole incident with you… we were told that technically your marriage was legal and binding. That’s when it all started. Charles and Delia, well, they didn’t like that.”

“They blamed us,” Adam interjected, “For everything, for the lost income, for the deaths of the Deens -you killed them by the way,”

“And gee don’t I feel bad about it?” Betelgeuse rolled his eyes, “Now get on with the story.”

“And the wedding. Charles and Delia,” Barbara started back up again, “Blamed us because if we hadn’t been trying to get them out of the house they “ _l_ _egally owned_ ” none of this would have happened. The Deens would still be alive, they’d be making a fortune by owning and gentrifying an entire town, and Lydia wouldn’t be married to a-” she cut herself off but he knew what she was going to say. It certainly hadn’t been the first time he’d been called a monster and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last. But it was sweet how she wanted to try and spare his nonexistent feelings, “They began to distance themselves from us. And it was like we couldn’t be seen again. But Lydia refused to let them forget. She made it a point to bring us up in conversation, ask when they were going to stop acting like jerks, she did everything she could. But the refused to be swayed. Charles started drinking, Delia dove into those pill bottles of hers… and I think slowly enough they convinced themselves the whole thing had been imagined. That they were the ones in the right,”

“The final straw came when they told Lydia they were going to sell the house to try and make some money back on it. That living in Winter River hadn’t been as relaxing as they thought and they missed the hustle and bustle of the city. Lydia refused, saying she was going to stay with us,” Adam jumped in again, “And they did _not_ like that. The fight that night was explosive. But… we thought it would work itself out. They were civil, if not cold, to one another for a few weeks. And then…”

“One day, we were waiting for Lydia to come home from school. We saw some men drive up in a white van, wearing white uniforms. Charles and Delia had a lot of people over, so we didn’t think anything of it at the time. Probably just another cleaning service to try out,” Barbara shook her head, as though she’d been foolish, which she had, “But then Lydia got home. We knew we shouldn’t risk it with other people in the house but we went down to greet her like we always did. And then those men in white came after her-” Barbara cut herself off with a chocked noise of sorrow and turned away, leaving it to her husband to finish the tale.

“They told her she’d be going to stay with them for a while. Lydia knew exactly what was going on and refused. She was eighteen by that point, but her parents insisted that since she clearly wasn’t of sound mind there was no way she could consent or not and,” and here he took on the voice of the man Betelgeuse now wanted to rip apart piece by microscopic piece, “‘Lydia we’re just trying to help you, now go with the nice men and we’ll talk as soon as you’re done with this haunted house nonsense’. And, we haven’t seen her since,”

Alright, so that explained _what_ had happened. And while he had a pretty good idea, it still didn’t explain _where_ she’d been taken. So he had to ask, because he wanted to hear it from their mouths, “Adam, Babs, m'friends. 'M only gonna ask ya one. Last. Time. Where. The _fuck_. Is. My. Wife?”

With a shaky breath Barbara gave him his answer, “She’s in a sanatorium.”

Sanatorium. An asylum. A nuthouse. Fuck. he’d come across plenty of sorry bastards in his time with Juno, and in his punishments, who hailed from those places. Most of which had been placed into civil service shortly thereafter. He honestly couldn’t blame them. He was a rover, a free spirit (especially now) he didn’t do being stuck in one place very well. And those poor bastards, they were stuck under the delusion that they were being cared for by being separated from the rest of society. And the saddest part was was that for most of ‘em? They just didn’t jive with society’s conception of normality. Some of those poor fuckers couldn’t even qualify for civil service because they were missing a chunk of their brains. And not in the sense that they’d blown them out. Crap… what was that procedure called?

“Hey,” he grunted, “What’s that thing where the quacks take out a chunk o' yer brains tryin’ ta," and here he added air quotes, "'help'?”

The Maitlands looked at him, then each other, then back to him, “A lobotomy?” Adam offered.

“”S the one,” Betelgeuse pointed at the man, “You think Lyds’ ‘s in danger o’ that?”

Again the Maitlands looked at each other, “Probably not,” they told him, “Those procedures stopped being performed in the late sixties,”

“Not that that’s helpful,” Barbara muttered under her breath, “They have plenty of ways to wreck someone’s mind that don’t require cutting it out.”

“Speakin’ from first hand experience Babs?” Betelgeuse asked her.

Barbara’s eyes hardened, “I’ve seen what those drugs Delia has have done to her,” she reminded the poltergeist, “Imagine what kind of stuff they have at a medical institution.”

Betelgeuse swore under his breath. Drugs were a problem even in the Afterlife. Mainly because you could get as fucked up as you wanted to with exactly zero repercussions and who wanted to spend the rest of eternity contemplating a mundane existence beyond death? And while he was all for people doing whatever the fuck they wanted, he’d seen what those things could do to the dead. He couldn’t imagine how badly they might fuck up a living body and mind. Beyond that, he was mad. Mad that ol’ Chuckie and Deils thought that they had any right to do anything with _his_ bride. He owned the body, mind, and soul of one Lydia Deetz, not anyone else. So spoke the cursed ring on her finger. But he would deal with the other Deetzes later. First, he had a damsel to rescue.

“You gotta name fer this place?” Betelgeuse asked them.

“You’re going there?”

“Seein’ as you two can’t leave the front porch, yeah, 'm goin’ there. Gonna go get my wife 'n not even Jesus’ll be able ta help those poor fuckers if I’ve found out they’ve touched one _hair_ on her pretty lil head.”

The Maitlands shared another look before they turned to him. Barbara gave Adam a nod and he spoke, “Normally we’d be against that sort of needless violence,” he began, “But they took Lydia aware from us. So please,” the Maitlands looked straight at him and _there_ was the darkness and evil he knew had been brewing deep down inside ‘em all along, “If they’ve hurt Lydia in any way, _make them pay for it_.”

“Din’t need yer permission, was gonna do that ‘nyways. But I ‘preciate the blessin’,” Betelgeuse replied, “‘Specially since I know Lydia’s had better parents in you than her living shits.”

“Can we ask one more favor of you?” Barbara asked him, “Can you… can you _please_ bring her back here, even if it’s just for a night. We’re so worried about her, we haven’t seen her in _years_ -”

“Years?” alright, fuck the Deetzes, he was gonna march down there and tear apart the whole damn bureacracy for this. Years since she’d been taken away, years of potential damage done while they kept him stuck in limbo because they didn’t want to acknowledge that they’d lost and he was legally free to go.

“Three years,” the Maitlands whispered brokenly. They’d lost their child all over again, so naturally it stung. Betelgeuse ran a hand through his perpetually grimy and wild hair. He didn’t like the Maitlands all that much, but Lydia did. Besides, she’d probably need a familiar place to recover while he went and took care of all the people on his shit list. A list that was growing by the minute. And he knew the Maitlands would take care of her so long as they had the means to do so. Sure, he could let them play nursemaids, least then he’d know Lydia would be safe.

He sighed, “Alright,” he relented, “Normally I don’t make promises, but I can do ya this. Lydia’s gonna need ya, and _I’m_ gonna need someone ta look after ‘er while I take care o’ some business. So, you get her for as long as it takes me to do what I need ta get done. After that, she’s _mine_ , got it?”

He could tell they wanted to argue. But every minute they spent arguing was yet another minute Lydia remained incarcerated with a very real possibility of permanent damage. So they made a deal with the devil for the sake of someone they loved.

“Now,” Betelgeuse rumbled, voice like an ominous clap of thunder, “Give me a name,”

“Peaceful Pines Institute for the Mentally Unstable,” the Maitlands informed him, rattling off an address that meant absolutely nothing to him. A name was all he needed. He could see it in his mind’s eye right this very minute. A tall imposing monstrosity of brickwork with ivy climbing the sides and bars on the windows. Naturally far removed from the rest of civilization. With nothing more than a snap and a puff of smoke he was gone. And the Maitlands felt a sense of dread and foreboding settle in their stomachs.

BJ BJ BJ

The Peaceful Pines Institute was exactly how it had looked when he'd first seen it. But, it was a helluva lot louder. Not a surprise, most spirits stayed to haunt a place they had a strong emotional bond to. And where could your emotions be stronger than a place of torture like this? Betelgeuse was honestly impressed by how many stiffs were still hanging around. But, it kinda sucked for the living, because they were agitating the patients. Funny enough, most of the crazies were ones with the sight for the unseen. And that was what made them different, which was what had landed them here. Betelgeuse didn't care about that. He cared about finding his wife. So he pulled one of the kook spooks at random and slammed them against the wall.

“Hey, hi, how ya doin’?” Betelgeuse asked them. It was hard to tell them apart, all in the white gowns with bare feet and lanky complexions. You could hardly tell the living from the dead around here, “Lookin’ fer a patient that’s s’posed to be here. Maybe you heard of her? Name’s Lydia Deetz.”

The former inmate, now here for the next however long they were stuck, stopped shaking at the mention of Lydia. Not a big surprise. She had the sight, most ghosts would take notice of that.

“You're looking for Miss Lydia?” They asked, “Please don't hurt her! Please!”

They began to tremble again, attracting the attention of the other ghosts. He wanted to smack them but the show should be saved for later, after he’d busted Lydia outta this place. As it was he merely held his hand over the spectre's throat.

“Shh!” He hushed them, “I ain't here ta hurt her. Can't say the same of anyone who _has_. But Lydia’s m'wife, need ta find out where she’s at.”

“Oh,” the spirit calmed, “She’s in her room… she’s always in her room now.”

Betelgeuse raised a brow at that, “Whaddya mean by that?”

“They used to let her out, in the beginning. Miss Lydia was always so nice…” the spirit suddenly seemed far away, turning translucent as they lost themselves to memories, “She saw us you know, spoke to us. She could see what they couldn’t. Lots of patients can, but they learn quick not to talk to us. Bad things happen when the nurses see them talking to us…” there was a pause, “Miss Lydia thought that wasn’t right. She liked us, wanted us to like her. So nice, so nice, so nice… They didn’t like that. The men in white didn’t like that Mister. They…” and here the ghost stopped, as if frightened, though of what wasn’t sure. Was it of what had happened, or what the retribution would be .if they told this palpably powerful entity what had happened to his spouse.

“Spit it out,” he was losing time and losing patience, and about ready to start beating answers out if that meant it would get him closer to Lydia faster.

“They stuck her,” the spirit answered, “She never did anything wrong. But the men in white didn’t like that she talked to us. Didn’t like that she wouldn’t say we weren’t there. They brought out a needle. Then she fought. They had to hold her down, she fought. And then… she was still. So still, we thought she’d never wake up. But she did. But she wasn’t Miss Lydia anymore. She was someone else. Someone quiet, and still. Someone who couldn’t see us anymore, wouldn’t talk to us anymore. Now she sits. Just sits, sits in her room and stares. We try to see her, we try to talk to her, sometimes she’s almost back, and we can see her scribbling. But then they come in and stick her with the needle, and Miss Lydia goes away again. Please don’t hurt her!” they begged again, “She tried to fight them! She tried to tell them we were here, still here, always here! But they wouldn’t listen!”

“Shaddup!” Betelgeuse silenced them, “Ain’t gonna do nothin’ ta hurt ‘er. ‘T’s my wife we’re talkin’ ‘bout. But as for the men in white…” he trailed off dangerously, staring at nothing for a moment before yellowed eyes and a rotting smile stretched dangerously across his face turned to the specter, “How’d you and yer buddies here like the men in white gone? _Permanently_?”

Again, the specter was fearful, but also hopeful, “You can… do that?”

“‘M a bio-exorcist,” Betelgeuse informed them, “Gettin’ rid ‘o the livin’s what I do best. 'N all I want in return is one thing. Now tell me,” he leaned forward, “Which rubber room is my wife trapped in?”

BJ BJ BJ

It was impressive, what he found there. Not Lydia herself, though she was always the most impressive thing in the room. No, what he meant was the amount of times his name, or something approximating it considering how it was spelled, covered the walls. Seemed she’d been calling for him for a long time. Too bad he hadn’t been able to answer. The Waiting Room suppressed all supernatural abilities, which was why people didn’t leave until they were called. Damn them, he was really going to rip everyone down there a new one for being proxy to this. But as for his little homemaker, she was sitting limply against the wall, legs spread out in something he might have thought of as invitation at any other time. But not at the moment. Not that taking advantage of a woman who wasn’t all there wasn’t something he was against on principle, but this was Lydia. And this was their reunion, he’d be damned if it wasn’t something she was sure to remember. Her hair had grown longer. No surprise there, she was in a looney bin, they generally didn’t allow patients near sharp objects. And if the way Lydia had been treated was any indication, they thought she was completely off her rocker, not worth having near sharp objects no matter what. That was okay, he prefered long hair anyways. Long hair had lots of use, and it was nice to wind his fingers through when women sucked him off. Thankfully, he’d been right about one thing. That impersonal hospital gown of hers couldn’t hide the nice rack she’d gotten while he’d been away.

Lydia was sitting there, staring down at nothing in her lap. Unmoving, and almost unbreathing except for where you could see the subtle rise and fall of her chest and stomach. She looked like a doll, the kind one had discarded after beating the shit out of. That was bad enough, and then, he saw her arms. Both of them. Pinpricked with marks, like freckles up her limbs. Shit. he’d faked being an expert in medicine long enough to pick up a thing or two here. And he knew you could stick a vein more than once before it collapsed. He’d seen track marks, afterlife was full of ODers, and thankfully there weren't too many of them. Mostly just those damn dots. Fuck, how many times had they shot her up and pumped her down? Betelgeuse could feel his rage building. There was nothing fucking wrong with the fallen angel he’d found in the attic so long ago, and now there probably would be because these fuckers had messed with her head. There would probably be only one silver lining to this whole ordeal, besides the revenge he could feel make his mouth salivate and his fingers twitch; Lydia had already been broken, badly, so whatever he did to her from here on in she’d probably see as a mercy. His happy little homemaker for the rest of eternity. But first, he needed to get her outta here.

He’d been observing up to this point invisible in order to get a gauge on the situation as it stood. Lydia had always had a more supernatural inclination, he’d heard the Maitlands talking about how they were certain she’d seen them the day the Deetz family had moved in. And with this much supernatural activity going on for her to be this immune to it, she was either hopped up on drugs still or purposefully ignoring it. Even so, she still should have sensed him. He was an immensely old and powerful entity in comparison with everyone else here. She _should_ have reacted to him. Oh well, no time to garner one than the present. Because they were married, she would be able to see him even if that stupid little camera in the corner of her room couldn’t. Betelgeuse made himself visible and juiced up a cigarette, uncaring if it set off the smoke detector,

“Hey there babes, ya miss me?”

Lydia Deetz had learned very early on that she would never fit in. not even in a looney bin. The locals were all by and large people who needed to be there. At least because their eccentricities would otherwise make it impossible to live any life free of misery outside the walls of the institution. But as for Lydia. She didn’t belong here, she wasn’t crazy, her parents were just trying to suppress painful memories. It was natural, after a traumatic experience like they had gone through. But the problem was that Lydia’s refusal to comply with the reality they’d reconstructed for themselves had proven to be a source of butting heads. And since they’d been the ones with the money, they were the ones the doctors listened to. A few expidited pieces of paperwork later and here she had remained. At first, she’d thought that if she’d acted as she had before being sent here, they’d see the error of their ways and let get go soon enough. The problem was her own bleeding heart. She hadn’t known how many souls were spending chunks of their afterlives waiting here for their time to be up. How desperate they were to be seen. They’d ended up being the true friends. But like all things worth having, they came with a price. The doctors didn’t like that she appeared to be “getting worse” under their care. But rather than put any actual effort into collecting those substantial paychecks of theirs they did the easy thing. Medication. First it had been pills. Pills were easy enough to hide, pretend to swallow and toss out. But when it continued, when they still saw no progress, they turned to more drastic measures. Lydia remembered calling out then, the first time they’d brought in the needle. For some reason she had a deep-seated fear of them, but they didn’t listen to her, they held her down, and then time ceased to have any meaning at all. Rare were the moments of lucidity, where she could awake from her drug induced coma. She didn’t know what she was capable of when she wasn’t in control of her own mind. All she knew was that she was calling out for help, or so said the multiple iterations of her husband’s name that littered the floor and walls of her cell. She knew the ghosts came to check on her, but they would never be able to help her, so she ignored them. It was so easy to just let things happen, she’d been broken, bodily at least. Her mouth was dry, her vision swam in and out of focus, and if she tried hard enough, she could almost imagine her villainous savior coming to her rescue.

How cocky he’d stand there, probably smoking a cigarette and he’d smirk at her, some cheeky one liner escaping him as though she hadn’t left him for dead, and he hadn’t since done the same.

“Hey there babes, ya miss me?”

Yeah, just like that. Lydia didn’t bother responding. This was all nothing more than her own imagination after all. A byproduct of all the shit that had been pumped into her at various hours of the day. She barely even registered the feeling of the needle piercing through her anymore.

Betelgeuse didn’t take kindly to being ignored. He took to being ignored by his own damn _wife_ even less well. Tossing the butt into the ether Betlegeuse settled down on his haunches and really looked at her. Lydia had always had that whole gaunt, wafish wisp look to her countenance. Just added to her beauty in his opinion, but she was thin. Too thin. The kind of thin that spoke to the poverty he knew she shouldn’t be in because fuck if her deadbeat dad couldn’t pay for more comfortable accomodations. The kind of poverty that… reminded him of his breather years. Fuck. the wafish little kids begging for food because they didn’t have any. Wasn’t like anyone would give ‘em anything either, with the plague spreading like wildfire. And if there was one thing he hated, it was being reminded of the hell he’d endured before finally doing God’s job for him.

He growled under his breath and prodded at her cheek, “Lyds? Lydia? Earth to Lydia Deetz, come in Lydia.”

Ideally, in any other situation he would have slapped someone. Usually did the trick to snap someone out of it. But he didn’t hit women, unless there was some major exception. And while Lydia was an exception to most things in his book, this was not one of them. Betelgeuse grabbed a hold of her shoulders and shook her a little, hoping to wake her from her stupor.

Her hallucinations were getting more vivid. Not only could she see him, make him talk, apparently she could also make him touch her. Good lord she really _was_ losing it wasn't she? So desperate for someone, _anyone_ to come save her she'd imagine her undead husband trying to snap her out of it. It didn't matter. Betelgeuse wasn't real, none of this was.

Betelgeuse pulled back. Fucking hell. What the fuck had these shitheads done to her? She didn't seem to recognize that he was there, or at the very least believe that it was really him if she did. Then again, plenty of those drugs caused folks to see things that weren't there. Those ODers were the only reason the Afterlife had a looney bin in the first place. Only difference was that it was to keep them safe from the rest of the world, and to keep the rest of the world from being annoyed by them.

But now, he was faced with the dilemma. How did he wake his sleeping beauty up? Sleeping beauty, huh, now _there_ was an idea. Only problem was that even if he did she wouldn't be giving birth to any twins that would snap her out of it. Eh, maybe the sanitized version would be the best way to start. So he snaked an arm around her waist, tilted up her chin, and got to do the one thing he’d been looking forward to during that ceremony. Betelgeuse planted one right on Lydia’s lips. Despite how gaunt and unkempt the rest of her was -no thanks to the scum in scrubs- her lips were soft, if a little chapped. Not like he could judge, he was grime from head to toe and he liked it that way thank you very much. Still, he was fairly certain Lydia only looked like this because she had no choice. Oh well, plenty of time to figure all that out later, right now, he needed to make sure she was very much aware of who was here. And more importantly, stack the deck in his favor.

Lydia gasped, and felt a cold wet tongue slither into her mouth. Cold, the sensation sent a jolt to her brain. A jolt that broke through the miasma of drugs and apathy since she’d long ago accepted that no one would come from her. Not so long as dad and Delia paid handsomely. It hadn’t stopped her from fantasizing about escape, about desperate calls for her husband in the midst of those first injections. She couldn’t say his name, drugs making her tongue feel like a lead weight in her mouth, impossible to work the syllables around. And she had tried. To no avail. But writing it out was cathartic, with a marker stolen from occupational therapy. That hadn’t done anything either, but it made her feel like she’d been trying, at least until they’d taken the marker away. But this was no hallucination or fantasy. It was the real deal, he was really here. Lydia jolted forward, shaking hands clinging desperately to the dingy suit. Solid, it felt solid under her touch. Ever since she’d come here she’d had to learn not to trust her own senses but how could the truth be denied when it was right here beneath her fingertips. She broke apart and began to cry. Tears of joy, of relief. Someone was finally here. Someone could finally save her.

Betelgeuse didn’t know what kind of reunion he’d been expecting. But hysterical crying female? Not the one he particularly wanted to deal with. And yet as he pulled back, Lydia had a smile on her face even as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“It’s you,” she repeated over and over again, “It’s you, it’s you, it’s really you.”

Betelgeuse raised a brow at her. Maybe she really _was_ crazy. Oh well, crazy chicks were kinky as hell, he wasn’t going to complain about that.

“‘Course it’s me, who the fuck else would it be?” he asked her in reply.

“Why are you here?” Lydia asked, even though she knew in her heart what the answer was but she just had to hear it out loud after so long.

“Yer m’wife,” Betelgeuse reminded her, “‘M here ta rescue ya, can’t have the missus stuck in a looney bin, what would the neighbors say?”

“Oh thank goodness!” Lydia cried with jubilation, “Can we go then?”

Betelgeuse paused for a moment, then a cruel smirk curled the corner of his lip, “Sure,” he chuckled, “‘Cept, there’s just one thing…”

Lydia’s heart sank, “What is it?”

“See… Afterlife’s a real bitch when it comes ta dotted i’s and crossed t’s, know what I mean?” Betelgeuse began, “This my dear, this ain’t nothin’ but a… shall we say, conjugal visit. So see, we both want the same thing in this instance.”

“What do you want?”

“Out, same as I did all those years ago,” Betelgeuse loomed over her, “So, here’s the deal; I get _you_ outta here, and you make sure _I_ stay out, _permanently_. Know what I mean?”

“You want me to…” Lydia’s head swam, but she was pretty certain she understood what he was getting at, “Deal,” she answered without a second thought. Compared to this hell, nothing her husband could possibly do to her would ever hurt worse, even if he broke and battered her six ways from sunday.

“Alright babes,” Betelgeuse took her outstretched hand and dropped a kiss on it, “Grab yer shit and hold on tight,” her arms immediately wound themselves around his neck. He scooped her up in his arms and stood, uncaring of whatever bullshit her warden’s monitor must have been displaying at the moment, "Now you know what to do babydoll, say those B-words and we're splittsville,"

Lydia took a deep breath, savoring what was likely to be the last time she ever had to breath in the stale asylum air, "Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!"

With a wink and a nod and a puff of smoke, they were gone. And the institution went on lockdown.


	2. How to Care for Your Breather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out, real life and multiple stories means things have to be worked on in order of inspiration. Regardless, hope you enjoy this!

Lydia Deetz was someone used to the monotony of routine. Get up, get dressed, go to school, come home, do homework, maybe do some photo developing, eat dinner, go to bed. Since the asylum that routine had only gotten more mundane, especially when they felt that keeping her on the drugs was the only way to keep her and the other patients safe. Solitary confinement was just an added precaution. But the staff were always prompt, and the needle was very quick. Lydia barely remembered what happened between the shots, and she definitely didn't remember what happened right after she got them. And every time she developed an immunity to one drug, they'd either up the dosage or try something new.

With how timely the attendants were, it wasn't a surprise she started experiencing withdrawal symptoms shortly after they arrived home. Home. She was finally home. Betelgeuse whistled out the side of his mouth, and Lydia heard footsteps as she closed her eyes. Everything was loud. Too loud. It looked too loud, it sounded too loud, it even smelled too loud. Something in Lydia’s stomach recoiled and she felt incredibly nauseous and dizzy.

A soft groan met Betelgeuse’s ears. He looked down and saw Lydia looking paler than had to be healthy for her. And the sound she made wasn’t one of pain, but of discomfort. Fuck, living girls had other biological shit to deal with didn’t they? But hell, it had been a long ass time since he’d had to _deal_ with any of it. What the hell was he supposed to do? Well, this was why people had nannies. And with any luck, they’d still be where he left ‘em. A shrill whistle left him as he called for his dogs, who of course came running like they smelled fresh meat on him. Well, in a sense it could be argued that analogy was accurate. Lydia was the freshest meat out of all of them after all. Adam and Barbara ran into the room, pausing when they saw the delicate bundle in his arms. Three years it had been since they’d seen her, and the expressions on their faces -while heartwarming- was almost enough to make him sick. Physical displays of non-amorous affection, ya know he hated it.

“Lydia,” Barbara breathed, voice barely audible, “Lydia!”

Lydia’s resounding groan caused them to pause. And that was when they really seemed to look at her.

“What did they do to her?” Adam asked, tenderly brushing away a limp strand of hair out of her face. Betelgeuse barely resisted the urge to pull her away from the other man, reminding himself that they would only have her for as long as she was sick, and that she would be his for the rest of eternity. Adam may have been like a father to her but as soon as she was all better Betelgeuse would be teaching his bride the only daddy she needed was him.

“‘Zactly whatcha thought they would,” he replied, “Pumped ‘er so fulla shit I doubt she knows which way is up,” the fact that she’d thought she was hallucinating him was proof enough of that. He was an original after all, no bullshit copies or reduxes needed thank you very much.

“Oh no,” Barbara lamented, formerly unused maternal instincts immediately kicking in, “Oh dear, it looks like she’s going through withdrawal,”

“So what are we looking at?” Betelgeuse asked as Lydia began to tremble violently. He couldn’t blame her, it wasn’t exactly like he had any body heat to share, and the house was cold, being abandoned and all that.

“Let me think,” Barbara paused for a second, “Dizziness, shivers and cold, probably a good bit of nausea should be coming. It’ll be like an extended cold, or food poisoning probably. She’ll need at least a few days to recover,” another groan from Lydia, this time accompanied by some light gagging, made Barbara start to bite on her nails, “Oh dear, let’s get her to the bathroom. A hot shower, and a space where she can puke without making too much of a mess, should do wonders.”

While he normally hated any place devoted to cleanliness of being, he couldn’t say that he was willing to pass up the opportunity to see his wife naked. Betelgeuse silently followed Barbara into the bathroom and watched as the other woman worked the knobs. She fretted, complaining about how being dead meant she could never tell how hot something was by touch. And how difficult that made things in situations like these. Eventually though, the water began to let off some steam, indicating how hot it was. Hopefully it wasn't too hot for Lydia. Then again, considering one of the institution’s purposes was to beat down and break the spirits of all who entered there temperature torture probably wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

When Barbara looked expectantly at him Betelgeuse raised a brow, “The fuck do you want now?”

“Lydia,” Barbara replied, “She needs to get warmed and cleaned. It looks like she hasn't bathed in a long, long time. Can you go and ask Adam to get her some bread and water? Oh wait…” Barbara swore under her breath, “All the food in the pantry is probably bad by now.”

“Point being?” Betelgeuse raised a brow at her.

“Look,” Barbara sighed, “You may not like us, we may not like you, but you care about Lydia, same as us. We know what she needs to get better, and what she needs is food. Light foods, if I write you up a list can you go to the grocer and get it?”

“The fuck do I have to be your-” he was about to retort, but remembered that those two couldn’t leave the house without turning into sandworm chow. And while he personally didn’t mind that outcome, he also didn’t know how to take care of Lydia all by himself just yet. Lydia was gonna have to be mainly responsible for herself once she was fully recovered, because he couldn't do much more than give her money, a place to haunt, and awesome sex. Cooking, cleaning, that was gonna be her job if she didn't wanna dwell in filth which suited him fine either way. Either he didn't have to do jackshit, or she played the holy homemaker and he still didn't have to do squat.

But, until she got to that point, he supposed he could take Babs’ advice on how to keep her kicking. With a hefty sigh, he relented,

“Alright,” Betelgeuse told her, “Give me the damn list and I'll see what I can do,”

“You're not gonna steal the food are you?” Barbara asked, “No wait, you know what? I don't want to know. The less I know about how you do things, the better. Do whatever you feel you need to to get the food, Lydia’s health is more important right now.”

He smirked, “Sure,” he told her, in much the same manner he'd told Lydia he'd help the Maitlands all those years ago, “Just one problem,” he reminded her, “Livin’ in a model -so to speak- don't exactly help orient someone to where shit is. You gotta location for me or what?”

“Ugh,” Barbara shook her head, “Go spend some time with Adam for a little bit,” she told him, “He might remember where the grocery store is. But I really need to get Lydia warmed up,”

With a huff, Betelgeuse gently set Lydia down in the water. A snap of his fingers had the hospital gown and panties she’d been wearing dried, pressed, and folded in a neat little pile on the sink’s counter. And then, just to keep her from being annoying, Betelgeuse sent his physical self out of the room. His attention, however, was focused on Lydia even as he rested on an old recliner Chuck had left behind. She remained mostly unconscious through getting cleaned up, Barbara tending to her limp and greasy hair and gently swiping a sudsy sponge over her body. He didn't know why he felt the need to do this. He didn't trust Babs with his afterlife, but he would trust her with Lydia when it came down to it. Which meant he could focus on more pleasant thoughts, like what he was going to do to the offices down below, or to that fuckin’ looney bin for fucking up his wife.

“-Geuse?” Someone was saying his name, attempting to get his attention, “Betel-”

“Ah!” Betelgeuse snapped out of his stupor, holding up a grimy finger in front of the man’s face, “Just because I’m free don’t make my name free real estate bub,”

Adam huffed, “Fine, we’ll just use the first half, is that okay?”

Betelgeuse thought it over. Well, they would probably need to call on him or address him at some point. And while he'd prefer being called any number of names that might appeal to his ego, the odds of it actually happening were slim to none. Meh, whatever, he had plenty of titles he bet he could make slip past those pretty lips Lydia had, once she got a bit more color back in ‘em.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Betelgeuse waved the other man away, “Now whaddya want Adam? I ain't helpin' with that fuckin’ model of yers s’don’t even _think_ about askin’.”

“No!” Adam recoiled at the idea of letting the brute near his precious model. Bad enough he'd been skulking about it during his last stay there. Adam shuddered as he recalled the whorehouse Juno had put there, likely to try and defer the vile man away from poor Lydia, to no avail unfortunately. His poor precious model, desecrated forever, “Uh, I mean, no that's not what I came to speak to you about,” Adam rephrased, good hometown upbringing still ingrained in him too deeply to be impolite.

“Then spit it out,” Betelgeuse grumbled, “‘M still waitin’ on Babs to get me that damn list for Lydia,”

“That’s it,” Adam held out a small scrap of paper to him, “Here’s the list. She won’t be able to eat much for a while, but Barbara figured it would be better to stock up on stuff as she recovered, she’s going to need to regain the energy and everything else she lost.”

“Lemme seeit,” Betelgeuse said as he snatched the paper out of Adam’s hands. Having hung around the living world for so long he’d picked up some knowledge here and there. It had been how he’d learned to manipulate tvs, and produce commercials and flyers and the like. But the idea that you go to the store to pick up food already harvested and in some cases premade was still a bit of a novelty to him. He’d be able to grab food from a list though, that shouldn’t be too hard, right? He rifled through his magical pockets, feeling around for what he knew he needed, and after a few moments of dodging rats and snakes and other tasty snacks he brushed against his prize and snatched them out. The glasses were old and worn and had a spidery crack on one of the lenses and plopped them on his face. He squinted at the page, trying to get the shapes to focus in under the lenses and took a look. There in loopy swirling handwriting he saw what were probably supposed to be words, but he couldn’t quite make them out. Fucking hell, did Babs get trained by one of those scriptorium monks? How the fuck was he supposed to read this?

“You um…” Adam began watching as the man’s brow contorted as he turned the paper in a couple different directions, “You need some help reading that? I know Barbara’s handwriting isn’t always the most legible-”

“Legible? This goes beyond fuckin’ illegible,” Betelgeuse snarked as he tossed the paper back at the other man, “I spent several centuries reading contracts for christ’s sake, not spiderscratch. Get me somethin’ I can read or I ain’t goin’ nowhere, and I’ll just bring in whatever I think breathers can eat.” he paused for a second and thought, “On a completely unrelated note, this place get cleaned out when shit-face ‘n the pill popping whore left?”

“Maybe?” Adam shrugged, attention diverted on transcribing Barbara’s list into block print lettering so the poltergeist could read it, “Don’t know, we’ve mainly stuck to our part of the house since. Well, I have, anyways, Barbara…” Adam looked off to the side for a moment before continuing, “From what I remember, they didn’t even send movers in to clean out the place, which is why it still looks more or less the way it does,” and here Adam handed back a hopefully more legible note with the list of things Barbara wanted the poltergeist to procure for him, “How’s this?”

Betelgeuse squinted again at the page, it wasn’t great, but at least it looked a lot more readable than Barbara’s scrawl had been. He could actually make out what the items were. And for the most part it was the usual stuff, bread, water, fruits -he had never had the chance to eat a banana while alive, but any fruit that was phallic shaped was alright in his book- but then at the bottom there were two items he didn’t recognize, “The fuck is a saltine?” he asked Adam.

“They’re salted crackers,” Adam explained, “Hence the name. They’re a good way to start gaining back the water weight Lydia lost,”

“Okay…” Betelgeuse drawled, “‘N this one here?”

“That’s Gatorade,”

“You breathers drink gators?” Betelgeuse raised a brow at Adam.

“No,” Adam sighed exasperatedly, “It’s just a drink that… you know what? I’m not gonna try and explain this to you. _You_ come from a time where people made paint out of Egyptian mummies.”

“Yer point?” Betel asked, “‘Cause the rich fucks who could afford commissioning those asshole artists could afford someone diggin’up some long dead schmuck fer paint. Were’d you get the idea I ever fit that mold?”

Adam attempted to come up with an argument for that, but failing gestured for Betel to come look at the model, “See here?” he asked pointing to a random building with a green roof to it, “That’s the grocer’s, or at least it was the last time we were made aware of it, if you can't find it, just look around. I'm sure you've noticed Winter River’s not that big a place.”

“Right, right,” Betelgeuse waved the other man off, “Get yer shit from the food place. I got it.”

And with a pop he vanished. But he didn't go straight to the market for food. No, instead he went to check out Chuck's old office. With any luck he'd left in such a hurry after shipping his own kid off to the looney bin there'd be enough information to pull off this con. Sure enough, all placed neatly -and by _date_ \- in a desk drawer was a bunch of bank statements. Betelgeuse pushed his glasses back up on his nose and reached for the phone on the desk. The hum of the dial tone met his ears. Figures, the schmuck hadn't bothered to cut off power or hot water to the house, why would the phone be any different? While he wasn't the most well versed in technology, being dead before most of this shit was even invented, he'd been around long enough to see the phone gain popular use as a method of communication. And with the contact information of the bank right on the paper, it was all too easy. Betelgeuse dialed the number and when someone picked up it wasn't his voice that came out of his mouth,

“Hi yes, this is Charles Deetz,” Betelgeuse began, “I wanted to check on the assets of my accounts, and that of my daughter Lydia Deetz. Yes of course, I have the account information right here,” he rattled off a string of numbers and figured out the security question easily enough. Apparently Chuck had loved Lydia to make her the answer to his security question. And with a bit of spectral fudging (he didn't know Lydia’s middle name yet but he was sure to find out) all of the control of his finances was put in Lydia’s hands, and accounts, with enough of an allowance to keep the real Chuck from getting too suspicious. For now. Betelgeuse hung up the phone, satisfied with his handiwork. And now, to get those things Lydia needed, which would be generously paid for by the US treasury until her new bank card was delivered to the house in Winter River, and whenever Betelgeuse felt like treating his wife. What she didn’t know and all that, and so long as she had her own finances set up and known about, she could just imagine he was paying for stuff through that.

BJ BJ BJ

With a snap of his fingers Betelgeuse took on a more appropriate appearance, which basically consisted of adding nothing more than a more fleshy color to his pallid skin and that was it. In his mind he visualized the building Adam told him about and with a pop he landed in the middle of town. Nearby was the building with the green roof and thankfully it still looked to be a market of some kind. List in hand Betel followed the direction of the other breathers and grabbed a shopping cart. And thank whoever was in charge for human idiocy and lack of universal layout. The aisles were labelled with what products they carried, which meant he was able to grab most of the ones on his list without too much difficulty. He still struggled with wondering what the fuck a saltine was, but he was able to remember Adam had described it as a cracker, which had a designation on one of the signs. Drinks were all kept together, so finding the gator juice was just a matter of matching the name up on the bottle. He chose the one that was piss yellow, catering more to his personal tastes and rationalizing that if Babs had wanted something else she should have written down for him. He looped back around the store and went to the checkout, digging already for his wallet as he waited in line behind someone who was finishing up. The little stooge behind the counter had dark hair, dark eyes, and a melancholy bent to her that reminded him of Lydia. Like an imperfect copy, because her hair was just dark brown instead of black, eyes the color of mud instead of the honeygold on his little breather, the skin just a shade too tan as opposed to the practical porcelain state of his own. But, this girl’s entire aura spoke of sorrow and poverty, and hell if he hadn’t remembered that from life. Fuck, until the plague and the witch hunts he’d been a down on his luck drifter himself. Betelgeuse didn’t do charity, he was strictly a quid pro quo ghost. And he liked it that way just fine. But the reminiscence of Lydia tugged on him, so that without even thinking he pulled a random bill from his treasury connected coinpurse and handed it to the cashier, taking his bags and loading them back into the cart without even thinking.

“Um… sir?” the girl caught his attention.

“What is it kid?” he gruffed at her, raising a bow and watching her immediately shrink back. And there was the quintessential difference. Lydia had never been scared by him. Not so easily at any rate.

“Y-your change,” her voice instantly turned mousy and quiet as a trembling hand held out a huge wad of bills to him. Betelgeuse reached out a hand to take it and then thought again. Hell, it wasn’t his money if it got lost, and he wouldn’t be the one getting in trouble if anyone did pay attention enough to catch onto it… so he pushed her hand back and said,

“Keep it.”

“But-”

“I _said_ , keep it,” he scowled at her, taking his groceries and popping back to the house on the hill. Adam was in the living room when he arrived, “Here,” he said shoving the paper bags at the flannel wearing man, “Take this shit off my hands, where’s Lydia?”

“She’s up in her old room resting,” Adam said, taking the bags and rummaging through them a moment. He pulled out one of the bottles and the box of saltines, setting the rest of the groceries to the side and opening the box up. He pulled out a sleeve and handed both back to the poltergeist, “Since you’re going up there anyways, minding bringing these to her? She’s going to need them.”

“Only because ‘M goin’ there anyways n’ Lydia needs ‘em,” Betelgeuse snatched the offered items and popped away.

BJ BJ BJ

Barbara was keeping vigil over Lydia while she slept, and was frightened when he simply blinked into existence before her, “Evenin’ Babs,” Betel greeted, tossing the stuff at her, “Got yer shit, rest of it’s downstairs.”

“I suppose it would have been too much to ask you to put the groceries away anyways,” Barbara sighed, “I’ll go help Adam with that. You keep an eye on her, though I suppose I don’t need to say that. Just make sure if she wakes up she drinks some of this,” she shook the bottle, “And eats a couple of these,” she indicated the sleeve, “Adam and I will be downstairs if you have any other questions about her.”

“Right, right,” Betelgeuse waved her off, “Now git!”

It took a certain amount of power to be able to possess another ghost. Thankfully, he’d been around long enough and made enough shady deals that he had just such an ability at his disposal. With barely a wink Barbara’s legs were taking her out the door despite the woman’s own protests. And that left him alone. Alone with Lydia. She remained sleeping, looking so tiny and fragile all tucked up in bed like she’d been assured by her mommy and daddy stand-ins that the monster under the bed wasn’t real. Only difference was it was, and that monster was him. Because she was still sleeping though, there was nothing really to do besides watch her sleep. She looked a hell of a lot better than she had the last time he’d been this close. Not that she ever looked _bad_ , but she’d definitely had more life back in her cheeks. Probably felt a bit more human too. He wouldn’t know, he’d only so much as heard of soap since his death.

He sat there for some time. How much time it was, he couldn’t have said. Time was something that concerned the living after all. Well, the living and those stuck in the bureau like Junebug. But he sat, and watched. Watched her eyes move rapidly beneath her eyelids as she dreamt, watched the steady rise and fall of her chest as she slept, watched the quiet beauty of her that no one else had even a modicum of taste to discern. And she was all his. Now and forever. He watched her for so long it actually took him a moment to register that she had woken up.

“Babes?” he questioned, voice hoarse and loudly echoed in the otherwise quiet room.

Honeyed eyes slid over to look at him, and he registered a look of momentary surprise on her face. The wide eyes and the slightly dropped mouth. But as quick as it came it was replaced with an expression of relief as she realized who it was.

“It’s you,” she said again, the same as she had the first time she’d recognized him. But this was said warmly, without surprise, just a simple statement of fact.

Betel juiced up a cigarette and took a drag, “Yep,” he affirmed, “T’s me babes,”

“I thought…” she paused for a moment and he almost thought he was gonna have to prod until she finished, “I thought I imagined it. All of it.”

“Y’can’t dream up someone like me babes,” he informed her, “‘M one of a kin’.”

“I know,” she breathed, struggling to sit up when a ghostly hand was propping up the pillows around her, “So why didn’t you come?”

He raised a brow at her, “Whaddya mean why didn’t I come? ‘M here now ain’t I? Yer outta the looney bin ain’tcha?”

“I called for you,” Lydia admitted, “So many times, you never came,”

That made him pause, cigarette halfway to his mouth. Betelgeuse shifted, scooching closer to her, certain that he’d misheard, “Pardon?”

“I..” Lydia licked dry lips had to try not to let the memories, the little she still had, overwhelm her, “I called for you. They… they caught me talking to the ghosts, but they couldn’t see them. The first time I got sedated… I called for you. And the time after that. So many times, I thought you’d forgotten about me,” she cast her gaze to the side, somehow feeling guilty for doubting him even though he’d given her every indication her feelings had been right. Maybe that was just the emotion she could feel rolling off him. Anger, vicious sadistic anger filling the room until it was hard to breathe.

But, despite the anger she could feel, his tone and touch were gentle. She heard the plasticy snap of a cap being opened, and then a bottle of gatorade being shoved under her nose, “Drink up,” he ordered, though it didn’t sound nearly as harsh as he’d likely tried to make it, “Heard that stuff really fucks with the system. Known a couple people who kicked it from shit like that…” he paused, as though not knowing what to say. So he merely watched as she took a couple sips before handing the bottle back so he could replace the cap and set it to the side, “And uh…” he grabbed for the package, ripping it open and handing that back to her, “Got ya this too,”

“Saltines,” she murmured, gently taking one out and nibbling at a corner. Her stomach really wasn’t up to food at the moment, but it was sweet of him to offer, “Thank you,”

Betelgeuse scratched at the back of his head, unsure of how to deal with genuine appreciation, especially not of something so trivial and stupid. “Right…” he drawled. He was still trying to process how fucking angry he was with the jackasses downstairs. Three fuckin’ years she’d been sufferin’, callin’ out for him. And he hadn’t been there to answer, which meant someone had fucked with his juice and he needed to find out who. But not at this moment, this moment was all about Lydia.

“Betelgeuse?” Lydia asked softly, looking at him with honey in her eyes and on her tongue, “Can you… come here a moment?”

“‘M already here darlin’” he reminded her.

“No, I mean…” she shifted her gaze to the side a moment, “Can you… come a little closer?”

He was already sitting right next to her. In order to get closer he’d have to lean into her. Welp, if that was what she wanted, who was he to deny her? He leaned in until they were pressed nose to nose and he was staring her right in the eyes,

“Hey, how ya doin’?” He asked her. Lydia blinked for a moment as she pulled away slightly. Then she giggled. Clearly it was something she hadn't done in a while because it sounded hoarse and husky and a little out of use. And somehow that was amusing to him. Had he the stomach for it he might have even called it cute.

Lydia put a hand to the side of his face, cupping his cheek and running a thumb over the moss and mold that lay there. She tilted her head slightly and leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. He hadn't been expecting it, or else it wouldn't have been as short as it was. She drew back and smiled weakly, settling back against he pillows. Her hand remained on his cheek though.

“Really,” she told him, “I mean it, thank you,”

He placed a hand over hers on his face, taking it off and pressing a kiss to the back of it, “Y’know babes,” he began, leaning closer again, “Y’can’t just tease yer hubby like that,”

She looked up at him, seemingly shocked. Betelgeuse didn’t know why she was. She had to know him by now, she understood him more than anyone he’d ever met, in life and out of it. Besides, he needed a way to soothe the raging violence in his chest. Just a little, enough to make sure she was nice and worn out so he could take care of his other errands. And the Maitlands wouldn’t be able to influence her if she was knocked out.

“I-” she stammered, “I don’t, I’ve never-” he knew her better than anyone else. Three months of watching her through the eyes of the model as she snuck up to the attic with her little skeleton key; watching her read through the handbook, knowing, understanding. So naturally, he knew what she was saying even though the words weren’t being spoken.

“Aww, savin’ yerself fer me?” he teased her, “That’s so cute,” and he would use the word cute happily, if only in reference to her. Because she was. He leaned in, close enough to watch how she reacted as his breath tickled her lips while he spoke. The sound of her breath hitching was music to his ears. She’d been bold, making the first move on him like that, but now she was trembling from nerves. The precious innocent maiden about do be devoured by the big bad wolf. Well little red, it was too late now.

Grimy fingers twined in the tangle of her hair, now soft and clean thanks to Barbara’s ministrations. Her lips were soft too, soft and warm and buzzing with the life beneath them. When she gasped into his mouth, he took it as an open invitation to slide his tongue inside and curl it around hers. So sweet, and naive, she didn’t seem to know what to do with the muscle. That was alright, he could teach her. He teach her how to do a lot of things. She was his now, now and forever. It was only belatedly he remembered that breathers still needed to… well, _breathe_ , and he pulled apart to watch Lydia flop back on her pillows dramatically. That was funny. In all the trash he’d had time to consume, he’d never actually see any chick swoon because of him, or any other man for that matter. Seeing it here and now was just too amusing. Lydia panted for breath and he started going for the buttons on the black silk pajamas Babs had placed her in. the silk was cool to the touch, with just the barest hint of warmth radiating from her tiny frame. And then, shaking hands came over his, stilling them but not precisely halting his progress in any meaningful manner.

“Wait,” she pled, and he indulged her for a moment. But he said nothing in return, which meant she had to explain herself, “I mean… it’s just,”

“Told ya darlin’,” he reminded her, “I want out, fer good. Ya think for even a moment those assholes downstairs -and fer once I _don’t_ mean the Maitlands- would hesitate to drag me back if my i’s weren’t crossed an’ m’t’s weren’t dotted?”

“Well-”

“Not ta mention,” he added, “They’d undo any damage I’d caused durin’ m’little sojourn topside. Know what that means? Means they’ll stick ya right back in that shithole with no one left ta save ya, an’ we don’t want none of that now, right?”

Lydia was silent for a moment, and he belatedly worried he’d pushed her just a little too far too soon. He wasn’t above taking what he wanted from her, but fucking a limp fish was never any fun. Not to mention, the lost little look in her expression was causing unfamiliar, yet uncomfortable sensations to roil and churn in his gut. He didn’t like it, and the only solution seemed to be to make Lydia stop looking like that.

Betelgeuse huffed and then placed a kiss on the crown of her head, sliding into bed with her and cuddling her up at his side, “Oh hell honey,” he groused, “Y’know ‘m only tellin’ ya this because I know ya don’t wanna be separated from the Maitlands again,” she would be, eventually, but until she was in a state where she could take care of herself he needed them to watch over her while he enacted some prime retribution, “Jus’ wanna make ya aware of what could happen,” the fact that the probability of such things happening were incredibly low since his marriage certificate acted as the ultimate get out of jail free card was something she didn’t need to know about though, but he wouldn’t have called it outright lying to her, “Y’understand, don’cha?”

He noticed how easily she’d settled into his side, how comfortable around him she was despite knowing exactly what he could do. But Lydia rested her head against his shoulder and fiddled with her hands for a moment before speaking, “I know,” she said, still not able to meet his gaze directly, “I get it… but…”

“But?” he raised a brow at her.

“Oh nevermind,” she sighed, “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“Try me,”

“I just… I didn’t think we’d be doing it while I still…” she gestured to herself, “Look like this,”

“An’ what exactly d’ya mean by that?” sure, she’d definitely seen better days, didn’t make her any less of a goddamn knockout even if she’d had a little wear and tear. Wear and tear that _would_ be paid for, he’d make sure of it.

“It’s not…” and here he noticed some of the color returning to her cheeks as she began to blush, “I mean, I _have_ thought about it,” she admitted, ducking her head down and fidgeting again, “I just thought I’d be able to make myself look… I don’t know, a little more presentable or something. Nice outfit, nice underwear, that sort of thing.”

Betelgeuse couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth at that. She was concerned with making herself look all pretty for him. She really was adorable. With a snap of his fingers, the silk slipped away, replaced by lace confectionary in blood red, her hair coiled atop her head and her makeup done up. She gasped, and did it again when he conjured up a hand mirror for her to look in. With another snap it all fell away and she was back in her pajamas beneath the covers, the mirror gone. He rolled so he was caging her in beneath him, a hand that was never before so gentle cupping at her cheek,

“I ‘ppreciate you wantin’ to doll yerself up fer me,” he told her, “But it don’t mean I wantcha ‘ny less jus' cuz y’ain’t drippin’ in diamonds ‘n pearls,” he could always rectify that situation later, but for now, he wanted Lydia. Just Lydia. With a wink and a nod the blanket beneath him was gone and it was just Lydia and her little silky pajamas, all for him, “Now c’mon baby girl,” he told her, nuzzling at her neck a little as his hands busied themselves undoing the rest of her top, “Let daddy take care of ya,”

She didn’t say no. But she didn’t say yes either. She simply lay there, breathing as he undid the shirt and revealed an expanse of porcelain skin. He ran his hands over her sternum, watching as it reacted under his touch. Goosebumps pebbling her skin and her breathing hitching as he touched her. Her heart pounded beneath his fingers, a testament to just how alive she was. Warmth where there was only chill, light where there was darkness, death where there was only decay. Lydia was the antithesis of him, but a shadow of comfort. A complete paradox, just like him. Betelgeuse lowered his mouth, pressing kisses along her collarbone as he continued to run his hands along her body. Soft sounds escaped her silenced and strangled. He watched her clamp her hands over her mouth, as though afraid of the sounds she made. And while he would have loved to defile her for the listening pleasure of the Maitlands, he decided to indulge her and soundproof the room. There would be plenty more time and opportunity for disgusting and depraved acts together. They did have all of eternity after all.

“Go ahead and scream baby,” he growled into her ear, “No one’s gonna hear ya ‘cept me.”

It was as if he’d given her permission, which was what she had wanted from the start, groans of pleasure and erotic moans began to assault his ears. And he’d barely done anything but fondle her tits. Sensitive little doll, wasn’t she? He could make use of that. Betelgeuse laved at a nipple, abrading it with his teeth as another grimy hand slid down her body and dipped beneath the waistband of her pajama pants. What he found was hot. Hot and wet. Two fingers delved deeper, beginning to stretch and rub. Lydia arched her back in response. A little magic and the clothes were sliding down her hips as she began to slowly cant against his hand. Eager beaver, but he wasn’t about to rush things yet. Everything he did with Lydia, he planned. It had been the reason he’d waited to show himself to her until he’d finished fucking his way through an entire whorehouse. An entire whorehouse filled with pretty vixens and he’d spent the whole time (or most of it anyways) imagining her face as she came apart. Over him, under him, up against a wall, in midair, and not to mention all the other filthy depraved scenarios he could enact with his unholy powers. Of course, that wasn’t the only fantastic part of this whole deal. It had been a long, long time since the sounds of pleasure he heard were completely genuine and not the partial product of faulty human memory and a desire to feel on a level the dead just couldn’t. But Lydia, Lydia could. She arched and writhed as he parted her folds, thumbed at her clit, dove his fingers deep inside her with a rhythmic squelching sound that reverberated in the otherwise quiet room. Lydia clawed at the sheets, clutched at his jacket, twined her hands in his already unruly hair as she gasped and panted and tried to ask for things she didn’t have words for. She came apart in seconds, and he watched her fall to pieces, sucking his fingers off with a lecherous grin. With a thought his clothes were gone, and he was lined up at her entrance before she’d even recovered from her first orgasm.

“What,” she panted even as she felt him nudging at her entrance, “What… was… that?”

Betelgeuse chuckled darkly, “Told ya didn’t I?” he asked her, “I’m the ghost with the most,”

“I never had any doubts,” Lydia told him, “But… but that was…”

“Jus’ the beginnin’,” Betelgeuse told her, “Read fer round two?”

“Are you sure you’re not just trying to kill me in revenge for the wedding?” Lydia asked him, hissing as she felt the tip of him slip inside her.

Betelgeuse chuckled at that, legitimately chuckled, “Babes, believe me,” he told her, “‘F I wanted ya dead, I wouldn’t do it this way.”

While he distracted her with that, he snapped his hips in a practiced motion and slid all the way in with just a single thrust. Lydia let out a gasp, strangled by a low sound. Betelgeuse couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain. The two went hand in hand, especially when one was dead. Breathers were so fragile, they bruised, they bled, you had to show some restraint or else you could break them. Lydia had already been broken once, he wasn’t about to do it again, not so soon at any rate.

“Easy does it baby,” Betelgeuse soothed her, placing light kisses around her face, “Ya did so well, took me in one fell swoop. Such a good girl, so good,” he praised her, hoping that the positive affirmations would help her relax a little more. As of right now, she was panting, trying to even out her breathing patterns and her body was as tight as a bowstring. When it stopped sounding like she was drowning with no water around, he slowly drew back, hearing a slight hiss meet his ears as he did so, “Feelin’ alright?” he asked her.

“I,” Lydia was still trying to process everything that had happened so far. It was all so fast. She’d been trapped, she’d been rescued, she’d napped, and now here she was, consummating her marriage with a dead guy.

The tonal shifts had been abrupt and not precisely logical, but then again, neither was anything about her husband. So she supposed that was all par for the course. And then there was the new reminder that not all the nerves in her body had been medicated to death. That she could actually _feel_ again, and despite being sore all over, an indeterminate amount of time’s worth of pain repressed and now finally allowed to be felt, she was doing this. And it wasn’t bad, quite the contrary. Her husband certainly knew what he was doing, but she could have made that selfsame assumption when she met him on the roof of a model whorehouse. It was all very strange. Strange and unusual. But that too was simply how her life was.

“I… I think so?” Lydia said, answer sounding more like a question than anything. He’d made her feel good, prepared her for what was to come definitely. But it was still a strange sensation one never really could quite prepare for the first time it happened. It was different, not bad, though he was bigger than she might have expected, “You’re just…” she shifted a little, trying to find a position under him where it didn’t feel like she was liable to split apart once he really got going, “You’re big,”

He shot her a filthy lecherous smirk, “An’ yer small,” he lightly tapped her nose, “S’pose I gotta be careful ‘f I don’ wanna break ya. Unless,” he dipped down to whisper in her ear, “Ya _want_ ta be broken that is.”

There was something about the sentence that made it sound less like an offer on the table for later and more like a promise. And perhaps she was crazy after all, because being broken sounded appealing when he said it. Her breath hitched at the thought. But that was for later, not for right now. She didn’t think she’d survive if he broke her right now, and he’d said he didn’t want to kill her, for the moment at least.

“Can you…” she hated how inexperienced she sounded as she opened her mouth, especially knowing what sorts of women he must have been used to, “Can you just go slow?” despite knowing that politeness meant nothing to him something in her was still moved to add, “Please?” as she looked at him.

Betelgeuse considered it for a moment. Lydia wasn’t used to anything, let alone what he could do to a partner. It wasn’t surprising she wanted him to go slow. He could indulge her a little, it was her first time after all. Plenty more to take her as rough and wild and depraved as he wanted. All the time in the world in fact. So he pressed back in, slowly, slowly, watching her get to experience every last inch of him in a way that that first thrust wouldn’t have afforded her. And she’d thought he was big then. This little girl was gonna do wonders for his ego, he could tell already. Her expressions were already doing a lot in that regard, mouth dropping open and eyes wide as she really felt him moving within her. Betelgeuse supposed there was something to be said for delayed gratification. Too bad he wasn’t a big fan of it, especially not when he had liquid heat clinging to his cock.

Fuck, she might have been inexperienced but it certainly didn’t make her a bad lay. If anything, she was incredibly responsive to each thrust of his cock, sounds ranging from low moans to high keening as he began to speed up, snapping his hips rapidly in response to her sounds. His hands began to move, once again toying with the peaks of her breasts before sliding down to play with her clit. His mouth suckled at her skin, laving and playing and biting down hard enough to leave bruises. He knew, and he felt no guilt about it. Lydia had always been his, this was just a visual marker so that everyone else knew. The sounds of wet, disgusting, depraved claiming met his ears, a pretty sound when coupled with Lydia’s moaning. She was close, he could feel it in the way her muscles fluttered around him. Just to seal the deal Betelgeuse let a burst of magic travel from the tip of his thumb against the swollen bundle of nerves and then it was all over. Lydia let out a broken moan as she fell apart in his arms. Betelgeuse used the missing tension in his muscles to thrust desperately and wildly into her knowing she was momentarily past the point of feeling any pain. He clutched at her hips and bucked, sliding her against him even as he continued to move. And there, there it was, his own release that cause him to let out a low groan of satisfaction as he claimed her inside and out.

He came to with Lydia curled up at his side, sleeping soundly. Not surprising, he’d really worn her out there. Which had, in fact, been a part of his plan. With her sleeping soundly, utterly exhausted he could go take care of those errands. A good fucking was liable to keep her unconscious with plenty of time for him to do what he needed to do and be back before the next time she opened those pretty little eyes of hers. A snap of his fingers had a lit cigarette in his hands and the blanket tucked protectively around her. He thought about putting her pajamas back, but reasoned there really wasn’t a need to. Adam and Babs wouldn’t be lifting the covers for any reason. Lydia had her little nutrients on her nightstand. He took a contemplative drag and slid off the mattress, fully dressed in his signature stripes. Betelgeuse stood and stared at his bride, sleeping soundly and dreaming of who knew what. A small, wan, utterly satisfied smile was present on her lips as she remained unaware and he smirked. Because _he_ had put that smile, among other momentos, there. Letting out a sigh with his exhale of smoke he brushed some sweat slicked hair back from the crown of her head. Unconsciously Lydia nuzzled into his touch and he chuckled,

“Sweet dreams baby,” he told her, “Daddy’s got some work t’do, but I’ll be back real soon, promise,”

And unlike just about every other promise he’d made, in life and after it, he meant this one.

BJ BJ BJ

With a soft pop he was out of the room. Freedom meant that the Afterlife couldn’t touch him, that he could come and go in the living world as he pleased. That being said, he wasn’t setting foot back in that shithole unless he had a surefire way of getting back. Always have a contingency plan and all that. So, he returned to the attic, and found the Maitlands waiting there.

“The fuck are you two doing up here?” he asked them, “Whole house is yers now ain’t it?”

“Yes well,” Adam stammered, “I guess we got used to being up here. What brings _you_ up here?”

“Got shit t’do,” Betelgeuse replied, details intentionally vague, “Scores to settle, and asshole bureaucrats t’make answer for this shit. Gonna need a door, should be back soon,”

And with that he made a door in the chimney, stepping through into the eerie green light and landing back in the waiting room. Could he have simply popped into Juno’s office? Sure, but half of every good scare was in the ambience and presentation. A momentary scare was nothing compared to the fear and terror he wanted to instill. And while he could have ripped apart the entire damn waiting room and all the poor souls unlucky enough to be stuck there when he did, he was saving those destructive urges for a much more worthy target. A little wedding present for his pretty little wife.

Betelgeuse strode up to the reception desk and rapped at the little window screen. Miss Argentina was there, just the same as always. And still with that same vaguely pissed off and uncaring attitude she greeted most newlydeads with. He’d complain about the customer service, but then, really in this place the only reason for congeniality was when you were trying to sell something. Not like the souls had any other place to go, and since civil service was a mandatory sentence for suicides, there really wasn’t any need for false niceties. Sides, a little rude honesty wasn’t bad in his book.

“As you can see,” Miss Argentina said as she filed paperwork without even looking at him, probably assuming he was just another poor schmuck who’d hit a dead end in haunting his own place, “We are currently experiencing a backlog of requests to meet with caseworkers. Please take a number and your handbook, then take a seat and wait your turn.”

“Yeah…” he drawled with a chuckle, “Don’t think I’m gonna be doin’ that.”

His voice caused her to look up at him, clearly startled at recognizing it, “Y-you,” she stammered, “You know you’re not supposed to be here!” she hissed under her breath, clearly frightened and not wanting anyone else to know he was back so soon, “The rules clearly state-”

“An’ you of all people should know that rules don’t mean jackshit to me,” Betelgeuse reminded her, “‘Specially now. So, here’s what yer gonna do,” he took hold of the privacy window and slammed it to the side, hard enough to put a couple of cracks in it. Betelgeuse leaned in, expression dark and stormy as even through a tiny window he managed to convey just how much power he had and damage he could do if he didn’t get what he wanted, “Yer gonna pencil me in t’see Juney, _now_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. Thanks so much for reading and I'll see you all next time netherlings!

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading and I'll see you all next time Netherlings!


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